US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7794

Canada has announced plans to increase its defence budget by nearly three quarters over the next decade, after coming under pressure from the United States to boost military spending.

Defence minister Harjit Sajjan said the budget would jump by 73% to C$32.7bn ($24.2bn) in 2026-27 from C$18.9bn in 2016-17, with the biggest increases coming in later years.

Sajjan’s announcement came a day after Liberal foreign minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada would have to play a larger global role as the administration of Donald Trump retreated from multilateralism.

Sajjan told a news conference the new 20-year defense policy would result in “a Canada that is strong at home, secure in North America and engaged in the world.”

Canada will hold an open competition to buy 88 advanced fighters to replace its fleet of 77 CF-18 planes, more than the 65 new jets the previous Conservative government had planned.

The defense review said the jets would need to operate seamlessly with planes of Canada’s allies and estimated the cost at between C$15bn to C$19bn.

Ottawa said last year it wanted to buy 18 Boeing Super Hornets as an interim measure but has since threatened to scrap the plan unless the US firm drops an anti-dumping challenge against planemaker Bombardier.

Sajjan said the boost would take total defense expenditures to 1.4% of GDP by 2024-25 from 1.2% now. Other estimates put Canada’s spending at closer to 1.0%.

He declined to comment when asked whether the spending would result in a larger budget deficit than the Liberals are already forecasting.

Nato members have committed to spend 2% of GDP on the military, a target few meet. Trump last month upset Nato leaders by insisting they commit more funds. Asked whether he thought Trump would be satisfied, Sajjan said: “This defense policy is for Canada.”

His announcement came after Freeland said Canada would seek to play a larger role on the world stage as the United States retreats. Addressing parliament on Tuesday, Freeland said: “International relationships that had seemed immutable for 70 years are being called into question.”

“The fact that our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership, puts into sharper focus the need for the rest of us to set our own clear and sovereign course,” she said.
“For Canada that course must be the renewal, indeed the strengthening, of the postwar multilateral order.”

Freeland told parliament that Canada would “strive for leadership” in multilateral forums such as the G7, the G20, Nato and the United Nations.

She said Nato and Article 5, the alliance’s mutual defense doctrine, lay at the heart of national security policy. Trump upset NATO leaders by not personally affirming his commitment to the article.

For Canada to play a larger role globally, it would need to make “a substantial investment” in its armed forces, she added. “Canadian diplomacy and development sometimes require the backing of hard power,” she said.

Fox News host Neil Cavuto devoted a segment on his Tuesday show to giving some “common sense” advice to President Donald Trump.

Following days of Twitter outbursts about “fake news” and London Mayor Sadiq Khan’shandling of the weekend’s deadly terrorist attack, Cavuto spoke directly to Trump. “Mr. President, it is not the fake news media that’s your problem. It’s you,” he said.

The host continued to call out the president for “scapegoating,” “feeding [his own] beast,” and “acting beastly with [his] own guys.” Cavuto criticized Trump for alienating members of his own party and creating the very distractions he blames for derailing his presidential agenda. He then urged the president to listen to his once-friendly allies.

“Use these critiques you’re now hearing from usually friendly and supportive allies as sort of like an intervention,” Cavuto suggested. “Because firing off these angry missives and tweets risk your political destruction.”

In today’s edition of “Are You Kidding Me?” some civil rights lawyers in Georgia have filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of high school students who were allegedly frightened, embarrassed, molested, and assaulted in a “mass search” conducted by the Worth County Sheriff’s office. Yep. That’s what I said. Here’s how it went down, according to the complaint filed this week:

On April 14, 2017, Worth County High School was placed on lockdown, as Sheriff Jeff Hobby, escorted by a team of 40 uniformed officers with police dogs, arrived on school grounds to conduct a surprise drug search. The kids’ cell phones were seized, and all 900 of them were prevented from contacting their parents for the four hour search. Oh, and the students were also prevented from using the restrooms the whole time. Because that’s an appropriate way to treat school kids.

I know. I’m already a little sickened. But stick with me, because this gets way worse.

The lawsuit alleges that all or nearly all of the students present that day –900 of them – were searched in a pretty horrific way. According to the complaint, which you can see here, in full view of other students, and while Sheriff Hobby himself stood by watching, the Sheriff’s Deputies:

forced students to stand facing the wall with their hands and legs spread wide apart;
touched and manipulated students’ breasts and genitals;
inserted fingers inside girls’ bras, and pulled up girls’ bras, touching and partially exposing their bare breasts;
touched girls’ underwear by placing hands inside the waistbands of their pants or reaching up their dresses;
touched girls’ vaginal areas through their underwear;
cupped or groped boys’ genitals and touched their buttocks through their pants.
The reason for this alleged inappropriate/invasive/traumatizing/illegal/criminal “search” was to uncover suspected drugs. Sheriff Hobby apparently had a list of thirteen students on a “target list” that were suspected of possessing drugs – only three of whom were even in school on April 14. And get this – even after all 900 students were searched – no drugs were even found. None. On anyone.

Honestly, the only thing keeping me from going into a full-on fit of violent rage right now is that lawyers for the high school students are just as angry as I am, and they’re taking that outrage straight to federal court. The lawsuit makes claims for violation of the students’ civil rights, as well as for unconstitutional search and seizure and invasion of privacy. It requests both compensatory and punitive damages – and I sure hope this class of plaintiffs gets both in a big way.
[snip]

On June 08 2017 11:42 Danglars wrote:
After watching testimony all this morning on CNN from Capitol Hill with the ~"24hrs and counting" clock to Comey testimony (they had it yesterday as well in the 40s etc), it vanished same day.

https://twitter.com/ten_gop/status/872535692265615362

On June 08 2017 11:46 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
All of those officers should be brought up on child molestation charges, as well as sexual assault. 900 times.

On June 08 2017 11:42 Danglars wrote:
After watching testimony all this morning on CNN from Capitol Hill with the ~"24hrs and counting" clock to Comey testimony (they had it yesterday as well in the 40s etc), it vanished same day.

https://twitter.com/ten_gop/status/872535692265615362

On June 08 2017 11:50 Plansix wrote:

This is the definition of reaching.

On June 08 2017 11:58 Danglars wrote:

You usually post a countdown for an event on the day it occurs as the hours count down. If you want to make it a big multi-day 48 hour deal, suddenly retracting at the end is suspect. Anddddd it almost certainly helps Trump because he's unlikely to suddenly reverse on leaks made only days in advance. Pretty in line with CNN I gotta say.

On June 08 2017 11:47 LegalLord wrote:

Wishful thinkers are banking too hard on one big event that properly buries Trump. Though his shelf life is limited, we very clearly aren't there yet.

On June 08 2017 12:09 Danglars wrote:

Everyone denies being pressured, feeling pressured, by Trump or anyone else, and the story is obstruction. The story might be thoughtcrime if you follow the hopes and dreams of some posters in this forum. Its just a better hope than collusion at this point, so everybody's on board.

They're also going to get hit hard on this partisan leak campaign if nothing criminal turns up. You mishandled classified information to hurt the other team, not to save the republic. A good amount ofpeople have already clued in to it; Trump's bad, classified leaks are bad, nobody comes out clean.

On June 08 2017 12:10 biology]major wrote:
saw that cnn countdown thing posted on t_d and flipped channel to cnn, countdown timer was there. ?

On June 08 2017 11:46 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
All of those officers should be brought up on child molestation charges, as well as sexual assault. 900 times.

A 16-year-old plaintiff identified only by her initials, K.A., described being searched. She said a deputy “kicked her legs to open them wider” and “pulled the front of K.A.’s bra away from her body by the underwire and flipped it up.”

The deputy’s hands “went underneath K.A.’s dress” as he felt up her leg. He also allegedly cupped her vaginal area and buttocks.

One of student plaintiffs, a -16-year-old identified as “K.A.,” claims she was searched by Deputy Brandi Whiddon, who pulled the front of her bra away from her body by the underwire and flipped it up.

K.A. says Whiddon also looked down the front and back of her dress and slid her hands from K.A’s ankles up to her pelvic area.

“Whiddon’s hands went underneath K.A.’s dress as Whiddon felt up K.A.’s leg,” the complaint states. “Whiddon’s hands stopped on and cupped K.A.’s vaginal area and buttocks. Whiddon then slid her hands down to the other ankle. Whiddon was wearing gloves, but did not change them before or after her search of K.A.”

The other class members had similar accounts, including T.S., who said Jane Doe 1 squeezed her breasts through her shirt.

A male student, B.S., said Deputy John Brannen touched his penis and testicles over his clothes “four to five times.”

B.S. says Brannen also repeatedly touched his buttocks through his back pockets.

The deputies, J.E. says, made everyone put their palms on the wall, spread their legs and take their shoes off.

J.E. says that during his search, the deputy put his hands in J.E.'s back pockets and then under his shirt. He then, J.E. says, rubbed down both of the student’s legs from his thighs to his ankles, and back up between them.

“He came up under my privates and then he grabbed my testicles twice,” J.E. said in an interview. “I wanted to turn around and tell him to stop touching me. I wanted it to be over and I just wanted to call my dad because I knew something wasn't right.”

J.E.'s allegations of improper contact are part of a legal complaint filed jointly by nine students after outraged parents contacted Horsley Begnaud LLC, a civil rights law firm based in Atlanta.

According to the students' complaint, some of the deputies — Hobby's office brought more than two dozen, the complaint says — stuck their hands in students' bras and underwear. The complaint includes allegations that some deputies cupped the genitals of the boys and exposed the breasts of some of the girls to their classmates.

Sometimes the deputies wore gloves. Other times they didn't, according to the complaint.